In this blog, Fern Conaghan looks at how Leeds International Film Festival has been working to improve representation on-screen and develop relationships with new partners in the community.
The Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF) has undergone a substantial metamorphosis, not only in the active redefining of its programming strategy to embrace inclusivity but also in its approach to collaborations with new partners.
2022 saw the 36th edition of the festival implement a new category into its programme, titled LIFF 2022: Spotlights. This consisted of three sub-categories: Films Femmes Afrique: Women Creators of the Future, One Love from Jamaica, and Disability Futures. Celebrating films by African women, Jamaican filmmakers, and disabled people respectively, these strands not only illustrated the festival’s commitment to representing diversity on-screen, but also led them to question how they could improve the inclusivity of their festival more holistically.
This report will examine LIFF’s post-colonial realisation that film festivals must continuously adapt to make their events more welcoming for the diverse communities that exist in their area. With the latest edition of the festival having taken place in November 2023, I will explore the impact that these learnings have made one year on from the first Spotlights programme.
The roots of change
Firstly, it is important to understand how Spotlights came to emerge as a festival category. Alex King, Programme Manager at LIFF, informed me that Films Femmes Afrique: Women Creators of the Future was born out of a collaboration with Films Femmes Afrique, a festival in Dakar, Senegal.
International Relations Manager for Leeds City Council and LIFF partner Henriette Mahamane initially had plans to set up a separate film festival in Lincoln Green, Leeds, which was ultimately cancelled due to issues arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this change in plan saw Mahamane’s partnership with Films Femmes Afrique hosted at LIFF instead, with 11 films screened in 2022 as part of the Spotlights programme.
One Love from Jamaica, on the other hand, arose out of a mutual interest between LIFF and Jamaica Society Leeds. With LIFF being interested in programming more Jamaican films, they began to liaise with Out of Many Festival Director, Susan Pitter, who had partnered with Jamaica Film and Television Association (JAFTA). As a result, LIFF was able to premiere seven films from the Out of Many festival, alongside 6 JAFTA-selected shorts.
Disability Futures began as a research project at the University of Leeds, led by Professor Stuart Murray and Professor Amelia DeFalco. ‘Imagining Technologies for Disability Futures’ researched the relationship between artistic visions for disability technologies and the practicality of their designs from engineering and medical perspectives.
As a part of this research, the university collaborated with LIFF to present a selection of films that celebrated the work of disabled filmmakers. This sub-category reached new audiences for the festival, particularly disabled filmmakers and viewers. While LIFF recognised the importance of this audience engagement, it also encouraged them to question how they could improve disability representation and the accessibility of the festival more widely. This was not only indicative of a change in their programme, but also a wider transformation in their engagement with new audiences across Leeds.
New developments in programming and audience engagement
Fast-forward one year, and we find the 37th edition of the festival with freshly implemented improvements. First of all, it was immediately noticeable that a rich array of films from around the world were integrated throughout their entire programme and not just a specific strand. Filmmakers from Sudan, Nigeria, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Pakistan and Malaysia were included in the Festival’s Official Selection. Overall, there were 39 more foreign-language feature films (excluding those from Europe and North America) across the festival compared to the programme in 2022, highlighting LIFF’s commendable developments in widening its programming practices.
Another permanent change from the previous year can be traced back to Disability Futures. As stated by King, “The impact this sub-category had on the festival’s engagement with disabled people inspired a change in the accessibility of LIFF’s screenings.” Therefore, in 2023 LIFF met their target of delivering 50 accessible screenings, including those with descriptive subtitles, audio description, audio amplification, and relaxed screenings for neurodivergent audiences.
Perhaps the most significant change LIFF made was its new partnerships with community venues to create a more inclusive festival. As a part of their application to the BFI’s Audience Project Fund, the 2023 festival broadened its collaborations with venues across Leeds in underrepresented and lower socioeconomic areas.
To engage audiences outside of the city centre with their events, LIFF collaborated with The Old Fire Station in Gipton, St. Luke’s Cares in Beeston, Stockroom Cinema in Keighley, and Chapel FM Arts Centre in Seacroft. All of these events were free of charge, to help encourage local audiences to attend. LIFF’s mission is to have this new programme diversify and grow in the upcoming years, but we can already begin to see the impact it has made.
Exhibiting in partnership with local communities
Operations and Projects Manager at St. Luke’s Cares, Sally Thums, explained that the venue operated as a cinema from 1911 to 1956, before being converted into a charity shop in 1994, but for the last two years has returned to functioning simultaneously as a community cinema. Ed Carlisle, Green Party Councillor for Beeston and existing LIFF partner, informed LIFF of Thums’ interest in setting up a film festival connection in Beeston, and a partnership was able to blossom between the two. With 25 people attending this venue to watch Nature Matters, this collaboration saw both local newcomers engaging with the festival for the first time and regular LIFF audiences travelling to Beeston instead of the city centre.
When asked about the future of this collaboration, Thums expressed that she would be eager to continue this partnership and hopefully see a funded programme that could provide transport for Beeston locals to attend other LIFF events in the city, creating a powerful and enriching relationship between the festival and people from lower socioeconomic communities. She affirmed that by doing this, “We can show people a part of Beeston they don’t already know, and, in exchange, can invite people from Beeston to the Leeds International Film Festival.”
Similarly, Fran Etherington, Development Manager at The Old Fire Station, discussed the collaboration with Gipton’s renovated community hub. Gipton is a socioeconomically deprived area of Leeds, yet its thriving sense of community and appreciation for arts events is usually completely overlooked by arts organisations in the city.
Etherington claimed Gipton locals would be interested in these events but believe they’re not the intended audience for film festivals. This attitude completely transformed when LIFF brought their events to Gipton. There was a lot of excitement in the local community, and a total of 101 people attended the three films that were screened here.
Etherington believes this partnership is crucial for bridging the gap between arts events and smaller communities across the city, and that perhaps the future of this partnership can, in turn, introduce Gipton locals to larger festival events in the city centre for the first time.
I think it’s undeniable that LIFF’s inspiration for this approach wouldn’t have been possible without their initial developments with the Spotlights category. This transformed the team’s outlook on festival programming and changed how they chose to engage with audiences and communities in Leeds. LIFF has undergone a transformative journey of self-development to better contribute to its city’s vibrant film culture, paving the way for a promising future for the festival and providing an inspiring example of community engagement for other festivals across the UK.
Fern Conaghan is a postgraduate researcher of Film and Television Studies from the University of Warwick, and is a freelance reporter and writer for UK film festivals.